Sunday, January 27, 2013

The fam we live with is just a g'mom, mom and daughter. They´re pretty great. We saw Elder Christofferson and all. We all shook his hand and he said all of
our names as we went by. His Spanish is amazing! Soooo beautiful. I want Spanish like that.... one day, maybe if I´m diligent. He was amazing and we
had 4 other general authorities with us. plus! he went to one area in Panama to
talk to the people and guess where he went..... that´s right... my stake. God
has blessed me so much to let me be in this area right now and with this comp. This is like the best time I´ve ever had in my mish. I know hard times will
come... so I´m just enjoying my time as it lasts. I´m gaining more hope about going to San Blas. Woohoo! We are getting
like 100 new mish in the next year! It´s like doubling our mish. Right now we
have like 30 something sisters... we´re going to have like 70-80! we´re going to
be 1/3rd of the mish! SO exciting.
Love you all!
Hna Schumacher

Not too sure what they are doing, but this is during a Mission President visit to their area. Subway was on the menu though!

This week was a little less exciting. We have some amazing investigators. Maria is a lady who went to church the Sunday after we started visiting her. It took one visit and she's come both
these weeks! she's amazing. She's all set to get bap this month! And she
invited all these 17 to 19 year old boys that are friends of her son to come
listen to us. It's awesome. We taught them the word of wisdom this week.
sooooo great. They confessed to drinking and all and wow. They were just so
honest and awesome and maria is such a strong women and loves the word of
God. Also, when we asked for references from her, she just walked outside and
yelled over at her neighbor who was sitting outside and was like hey! listen to
these muchachas. listen to la palabra! haha. She cracks me up. I love her. I
love these people.

So Elder Christofferson is coming this week to Panama. He's speaking to
us mish on like sat and my stake on Sunday. We're stoked. Should be great. I
hope so. Seeing an apostle here is way cooler than any other time in my life cause like..... um well like I'm teaching the importance of apostles and prophets
in the church of Jesus Christ and one is going to come talk to us! How cool
is that! haha.

Sooooo. I saw a huge cockroach in the kitchen this morning.... that was fun and I'm enjoying watching the process of decay of dead dogs along our path every
day and talking birds are pretty fun. Especially ones that sing about Jesus in
evangelical praises. Note to family.... the praying Mantis here are AMAZING and huge and very bright yellow. Takes me back to good old times.... and even
if I don't love Chihuahuas... puppy Chihuahuas are sooooo much fun and tiny!
those are my animal stories of the day....

So I decided I could make a good living catching papayas here in Panama. I´m tall
and I never miss (knock on wood).

I could do well as a dead animal
picker-upper. I always notice the dead frogs, mice, dogs, birds on the street
cause I walk looking down. (needless to mention the situation with the kittens
and puppies in my first area) my comp is starting a foto collection of dead
animals; it´s pretty ¨classy´´.

Summer is kicking in, I´m as red tanned
as I´ve ever been before. do we have native american blood, cause that would
make sense (sorry, if that sounds racist, latinos are super easy going about
calling people black, fula (white), chino, fat, skinny... it´s norm, but in the
states we always tiptoe around this kind of stuff. (Just a culture note.) so one
of our investigators has a fantastic herb garden. well, an everything garden.
I LOVE plants (I think I give thanks to my mom for that) so she gave me a branch
of her aloe plant to rub the goo all over my face and body. it´s pretty
awesome. haha

so, I have tons to write... but have no energy whatsoever.
I just want to go sleep for days. This morning we got up at 5 to go to the
temple. I didn´t feel well but I headed out. well, it got worse on the diablo
rojo (crazy school bus) to panama. I about threw up! so the bus ride sucked. I jumped out of my seat to race to the front of
the bus and handed my money to my comp. I DID NOT want to throw up out the
window... which about happened. I rushed to the bathroom in the transit
center in Albrook and I´ll just let you imagine. But I wanted to go to the
temple with my zone, so off we went. Waiting at the temple, I asked the elders
from our ward to give me a blessing. Elder Castillo gave me a great blessing.
I´m so grateful for the Priesthood, the authority and power of God. Not feeling
tons better, I entered the temple session that was PACKED. they added 11 extra chairs
in the room. I felt crappy, but kept feeling better and better. I know that the Lord blessed me. I
know that he knows me. When I left the temple, once again, I felt
terrible as we walked to the bottom of the hill to catch a bus. well... while
walking with the whole zone I stepped off the path and puked.... in front of
everyone. it was really dumb. luckily my comp knows me well enough to ward off
the zone and tell them to stop gathering around and watching.... ummm... duh!
haha but they just all wanted to help I´m sure.... remember the time I got sick
with my mom of the mish (1st companion).... well, one of the mish was worried that I hadn´t
gone to the clinic or taken anything.... But I´m
more of the person to just hide out by myself until it passes.... unless it gets
bad... then, yes mom, yes dad... Ill do something about it. and plus my comp is
the nurse. no worries I´m so grateful that the Lord blessed me with health while I was in the
temple and everything was all clear on the buses. he knows what we want. he
knows what we need. He knows what we can handle. He knows that we need hard experiences to grow and learn and trust in Him. So now I´m just supper week and
thirsty.... hopefully I get back from the internet cafe all clear. love you
all... and I hope you enjoy my Panamanian TMI experiences... I tried to edit it.
really I did.

I´m SO happy. the happiest I´ve ever been on my mish. Hna Cooper is
amazing! We love being together and we are learning an incredible amount from
this time that we have together. She is going to be an even more incredible mish
by the end of her time. We are learning about going for it and
what it means to have faith.
I so excited to be here every day. Even when I'm
sick. Even when I´m dying of heat. Even when the dirt road seems to go nowhere.
I´m loving my mish.Love you all!!!
Hna Schumacher

We worked sooooo hard this week. We are on fire! We work awesome together and the Lord blessed us more than we hoped for. We have a family
that is prolly going to get married to get baptized! I´m so excited. we´ll both
be here for the baptism cause this is a 9 week change. SOO
exciting!

------Yesterday in church The Lord assured us that we are doing
something right here in our area. He blessed us with a 35 person higher attendance in church of menos activos and 7 investigators! It was amazing
and over whelming! Church was work! We were running around trying to greet and
take care of EVERYONE. It was amazing... I think I already wrote that, but it
was! We were so happy. What joy is given us as we work in la obra del
Señor!

While I was
sitting in church next to an investigating 80 year old man who is fantastic, I
wrote this in my journal: Ive never been so sure that I´m supposed to be where
I´m at. It´s like a place in this seat in this time was carved out just for me.
There´s no where else I am needed more in the whole world! If I came on my
mission just to point at which word and line we´re on in the hymn to this old
man in church today, I´m satisfied. I am perfectly happy and nothing in the
world matters more that this.¨

I love this
work. I love this people. I love this area. I love my comp. I love my
God.----------

SO... so leaving my area was hard. I´m now in Arraijan (ar-ray-han, accent on the han). Caceres, or Nuevo
Chorrillo, if you can find that. I´m super close to where I was, but it´s way
different. I´m with another GRINGA! can you believe it. I was pretty upset for
about 5 minutes and then I got over myself. She´s Hna. Cooper. She´s the new nurse. She´s from Minnesota. She has one less transfer than I do! so we´re both new in
the mish! crazy right! Pres Ward always talks about some of the weird companionships that he´s prompted to put together... I´m pretty sure we´re one of
them now.... She´s way cool. I love her already.

My comp and I love our Christmas tree that grandma sent me, with lights and
everything! It was amazing! I loved it. and I found ornaments in my house to
put on it! My comp has a ton of Christmas music too. It almost feels like Christmas and since she´s the nurse, we´re heading to Panama tonight
to eat Christmas eve dinner with pres and sister ward! They had just invited all
elders and Hermana Ward was like, it´s all boys, we need some girls, so she was
like, lets call the sisters! So we are going :) I´m pretty happy about that....

Who's who?

I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a Mormon, a student and a musician. I have been called to serve as a missionary for a year and a half in the Panamá Panamá City mission. I report to the Provo MTC for 3 weeks on JUNE 20TH followed by attending the Guatemala MTC for 6 weeks. I will speak Spanish, teach the gospel, make friends, write letters, walk a lot, be sun burnt, get tan, write in my journal, stay away from Malaria, be addressed as Hermana Schumacher and wear skirts past my knees. I will not watch TV, listen to the radio, use facebook, or call my family on days others than Mother's day and Christmas. Panamá, here I come!